Thursday, October 01, 2015

Russia in Syria...a "partial" order of battle....

"More than 50 warplanes and helicopters are part of the Russian air force striking Islamic State targets in Syria," Konashenkov said Thursday.He also stressed that marines, paratroopers, and special forces will be mobilized to protect Moscow’s military assets.

Interesting.

He stressed that Marines, paratrooper and Special Ops would be used in a force protection role? I guess the Russians took the lesson of Camp Bastion to heart.

Just going by the numbers and the type of aircraft involved the closest thing that the US has assembled that remotely resembles what the Russians have put on the ground is the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing (with the caveat that the wing was all USAF while the Russians have put forward a joint force).

What I find curious is that we don't have numbers on ground forces. Except for a piece earlier that talked about the 801st Marine Brigade deploying to Syria thru social media, I haven't a clue as to what paratroop unit or Special Ops forces have deployed (they really cracked down hard on social media...I've been looking to see what some Russian Marine posted on Facebook but no luck).

Hopefully we'll get a better idea of the units and their performance in the coming days.